Nothing eventful has happened. I attended a bachelor party over the weekend but the most exciting part was that the brisket I smoked for 10 hours was damn good (and fully consumed as I carved it). Otherwise, nothing to report. The painting continues and I will post some new pictures in that regard sometime, but don’t want to start a theme.

Kaldun has been doing pretty well in school lately. No real problems at home either. But I ran across this picture and I’m sure I owe him some humiliation for something. So enjoy:

So we wanted to do something different today. It was cold out (relatively), so preferably something indoors. We kicked around some ideas and finally decided today was the day the Fettkether’s took up painting.

Step 1: Find somewhere that sells art supplies . There are 3 really good art supply stores in Tulsa, none of which are open on Sundays. So Michael’s it was. Which was OK, since there was a 50% off coupon for the store today. Then we learned all fine are supplies were 25% off… so we couldn’t get the 50%. Scam!

Step 2: Find out how to paint. We headed to the Central Library and grabbed a handful of books,a couple movies, and threw a penny in the fountain for luck. Bases covered.

Step 3: Stop at QT for caffeine. It’ nearly 1pm and Kelli nor I had any caffeine, that kind of trangsression simply will not stand.

Step 4: Watch video.

Step 5: Decide the videos that were available were not helpful. The 4 other ones that were checked out and prechecked out were probably the ones you wanted. Decide to rely on the books and the aforementioned penny luck.

Step 6: Paint. The following are our efforts basically flying blind with acrylic paints. As hard, or as easy, as it may be to believe – no one has actually ever painted before. We spent $50 and will have paint and canvas for a very long time. And here are the first round of results:

I did pretty good. Learned some things (like I can’t paint, and painting backgrounds first is important). Everything you see is of course for sale. As I worked on making things up Bob Ross style (he did oil, FYI), Kelli worked on recreating things she saw and actual studies from painting books:

Kaldun started off strong then lost interest only to come back to it. I must admit his early attempts were his best, all of the following are from the first session. His latter session might well sell for millions at the Guggenheim but don’t make for good internet art.

Dragon in still life. I was surprised it wasn’t toasting a knight. From Learning to Paint

So there you have it. It’s good to know we harbor at least as much artistic talent as the elephants at the zoo. Soon we will rival the monkeys. After conquering the lower primates we will reevaluate our current occupations.

Happy Valentines Day everyone. In a break with recent tradition - no pictures today. Just a hello.

Last night we had a few people over and a friend for Kaldun. Threw cards until the time was right for pictionary. Good times were had by all. Today Kaldun and I are cleaning while Kelli is at work. Hoping for a low key evening at home.

Great weather this weekend, it hit 70 Friday, Saturday and today. Kelli had to work yesterday and Kaldun and I took care of some house chores, car washing, and root beer making. The important stuff. Today we puts around the house some and then headed out hiking and to the zoo before returning home to watch Madagascar 2 (OK movie). Hiking has been our way of getting out and doing something during the winter. We even got in a couple night hikes this year:

You’ll have to excuse the random old pictures and tidbits for a while as I catch up, I’ll have some newer pictures up this weekend. Tonight I was playing with YouTube. My mom got Bacchus and Igasa some toys for Christmas, so we let them open the presents. They were chew toys with squeakers inside. They lived about 10 minutes, and this is why:

The squeaking in the background is Igasa killing her toy off. Dang dogs, being all destructive.

I plan on posting some hiking pictures from last month this weekend and whatever else exciting goes on.

So Kelli and I went with a friend to The Colony, a little bar down the street. There was a pretty cool blue grass band playing. Banjo, stand up bass and 2 guitars. Pretty fun to listen to. So we sat back, had a few beers, and made fun of people as they walked by.

At some point a pizza guy came in trying to sell pizzas for cash to bar patrons. No one in our little group had cash, no American cash anyway. I have carried a $10 Canadian bill with me since I got it for change at a Walgreen in Virginia Minnesota (Southern Canada, bascially). So I haggled with the man and eventually exchanged $10 Canadian for a medium pizza. And it was good too.

And that’s the only remotely exciting thing that has happened. So no NEW pictures. But I have some pictures from Christmas 2008. Christmas eve at our house, Christmas day at Mark’s. I scored a floating bobber/cooler that I am trying to figure out how to get to Canada for the fishing trip. Kelli got a long sought after UNI sweatshirt and Kaldun got the mother load, as always. Slippers, a robe, a new rifle! The kid got it all.

It has continued to be moderately cold here, 50′s during the day but freezing at night. I’ve been using the cold lager some beer, hope it turns out well. We are supposed to turn the corner into warmer weather tomorrow and hit the 70′s this weekend. I’m looking forward to that for sure!

JD (webmaster) tells me he can upgrade to a new snazzy version that should run faster. So I also have that to look forward to, which is nice. For now, I have better go pick Kaldun up from Tae Kwon Do. Anyone realize this blog is back up yet?